This blog's title is based upon the best question I ever overheard being asked, by a young Liverpudlian child to his mother, as in "What's..?".
The answer seems to be something of a creative and cultural nature which, in deed (primarily the making of art) and word, this blog intends to explore...

Saturday, May 31, 2014

World Cup '74 Portrait #70 (Doug Utjesenovic: Australia)

graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour pencil/30x21cm

The subject of the latest drawing in the project is ‘Doug’
Utjesenovic, a sticker of whom appeared in the FKS ‘Wonderful World of Soccer
Stars World Cup 1974’ album (he failed to make the cut of the reduced six-man
representation for Australia in its Panini counterpart) & who was included
in the official Australian squad for the tournament, where he was subsequently selected to
play in all three of Australia’s matches, the defeats to both East & West
Germany & the draw with Chile that resulted in their elimination at the
conclusion of the first phase.

A little light Wikipedia research into another of the 1974
World Cup’s previously personally unheard-ofs reveals our hero’s first
name to be in fact Dragan, which complements the Slavic surname rather more
appropriately, not least when considering his place of birth as being Belgrade
in the then-Yugoslavia, rendering him another of the ‘Socceroos’ squad to have
become Australian rather than being a native.

Note, in this instance, the classic mid-1970s' shirt collar design, so evocative as it is of that period of football fashion, another of those details that contribute to the delight of engaging in this particular project.